


A Naturist In Oz

by OliviaThinksSheCanWrite



Category: Oz - L. Frank Baum
Genre: Gen, Nudism, Nudity, Public Nudity, non-sexual nudity
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-24
Updated: 2021-02-04
Packaged: 2021-03-15 05:13:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28933089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OliviaThinksSheCanWrite/pseuds/OliviaThinksSheCanWrite
Summary: A modern AU where simple Kansas farmgirl Dorothy is swept away in a cyclone to a magical land full of wonder, talking animals, and magic.Also, she's naked. Because of course she is.
Comments: 11
Kudos: 12





	1. The Storm

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to DrowsyAthena for all the help!
> 
> This story mostly pulls from the original books, because I am a snob who read the books before I saw the movie, but I do take a few things from the movie that are neat. Also, it's a tornado AND a cyclone in this one, so that's even more confusing now.

Dorothy Gale lived on the Kansas prairie with her Uncle Henry and Aunt Em, a little black dog named Toto, a kitten, six hens, and two hogs. They lived in a small farmhouse, and her aunt and uncle worked hard every day to keep the family afloat. Dorothy helped when she could, at least when she wasn’t busy with school, but her aunt and uncle didn’t think a young girl should spend all day working in a wheat field, so Dorothy was left with a lot of time on her hands, especially in the summer.

Dorothy was a simple girl with an active imagination. She enjoyed painting and stuffed animals, even at an age when that wasn't "cool". She mostly kept to herself, and when she did try to make friends she often found herself scaring people off by going on and on about whatever interest was currently occupying her mind. That suited her fine, though. Toto and the stories in her head were company enough.

Of course, when you live on a farm with no neighbors nearby except crabby old Mrs Gulch, it can get lonely. But Dorothy was good at keeping herself entertained. She loved painting in her bedroom in the small cottage she lived in, or running through the fields with Toto behind her. 

One hot summer a few years back, Dorothy had been running all day in the fields and had gotten quite hot and sweaty. In a move that made perfect sense to a sheltered farm girl, she simply shucked her dress and kept running. The breeze against her bare skin felt amazing, and she wondered why she didn’t try something like this before. She got her answer when she returned home to a stern talking-to from Aunt Em.

Part of it was just to beat the heat, but she also found that she enjoyed being nude a lot. She didn't know why, but she "felt" everything more, like the feeling of the grass on her skin, or the sunlight, or the wind in her stringy brown hair. So she begin to do it more often. First, it was just sleeping nude on hot summer nights. Then, she would sneak out for a dip in a nearby pond. The next summer, when her aunt and uncle would spend all day in the field, she was able to spend nearly the entire day nude, working on painting or playing with Toto. She had enough sense not to talk about it, though. People would think she was weird. Weirder than they already did, at any rate.

In the summer after she turned 14, things were getting bad on the farm. It was a very hot, dry, summer (climate change and all that), and dust storms and twisters were becoming more and more frequent. None of them ever came near the house, but just in case, Uncle Henry spend the better part of a week converting the old cellar into a proper storm cellar.

“If a twister comes, we get into the cellar and stay there until the storm passes.” He told Dorothy. “Tornados have been known to rip entire houses out of the ground, but it should be safe down there.”

“An’ what if I’m in the house when it gets ripped out of the ground?” Dorothy asked, nervously.

“Then grab onto something and pray.” Was Uncle Henry’s blunt answer. 

Dorothy was terrified after that. She wasn’t easily scared, but everything she saw on the news and heard from folks at school about twisters in other towns terrified her. After the third night in a row of nightmares of being swept away in her sleep, her Aunt and Uncle helped her set up a bed in the storm cellar, and it became her bedroom “until the storm season ended”. All her clothes and toys were moved down there, and while she continued using her old bedroom to paint during the day, she kept an uneasy eye on the horizon for storms.

It was a couple weeks after the move that Dorothy was in her old room. It was extremely hot that day, so as soon as her parents went out to the fields, she pulled her blue dress over her head and tossed it onto her bed, soon followed by her undergarments. Toto leapt onto the bed and curled up on top of her discarded clothes, and immediately curled up for a snooze.

The naked girl giggled. “You lazy dog!” Toto wasn’t actually lazy, but he didn’t have any chickens to chase, and Eureka the kitten had scratched him when he tried, so he had decided a nap was the best use of this hot summer day. Dorothy sat down behind the easel, examining her furry companion closely. Now there was a perfect subject. Toto’s black fur contrasted perfectly with the blue dress and pale pink bedsheets, looking like a little island rising out of an oddly pink sea. Dorothy dipped her brush in the paint and begin painting the black circle that would become Toto.

She wasn’t aware of how much time had passed, but she was abruptly snapped out of her painting hyperfocus by the sound of Aunt Em calling her name in a panicked tone. Dorothy turned suddenly, the brush leaving a streak of black across the canvas. 

“Dorothy! There’s a twister coming in from the west! Hurry and get into the cellar!”

Dorothy bolted off the stool, alarmed. She ran for the door, before remembering she was nude. “My dress!” She jumped onto the bed, lifting Toto, who looked annoyed at being suddenly awoken like this. Dorothy grabbed the dress and fumbled with it, not bothering with the undergarments. Suddenly it occurred to her that getting yelled at for being nude was preferable to death by twister, so she tossed the dress aside, scooped up Toto, and ran for the cellar. 

But she was too late. As she threw open the bedroom door, she heard a loud cracking sound as the house was ripped from its foundation. She caught a fleeting glimpse of Aunt Em through the trapdoor, holding a frightened Eureka and looking up at her, before the house was lifted into the air and Dorothy was thrown against the wall. The house shook around her. It span rapidly around. Dorothy held tight to Toto as she was thrown from wall to wall. A chair flew past her and splintered against the wall. The carefully set dinner table and all its contents skidded past her and fell out the open front door. Dorothy had no idea where her dress had gotten to. She just held tight to Toto, closed her eyes, and hoped for a miracle.

Maybe it was fate, or maybe someone was looking out for Dorothy, but suddenly the house stopped tilting. It was still spinning, but not nearly as fast. Dorothy stood shakily. She was bruised all over, and the house was trashed, but it could have been much worse.  
Dorothy shakily walked to the open front door, staring out at the chaos beyond. The house was floating in the center of the twister, at the eye of the storm. It didn’t even look much like a twister anymore, it looked like she was in the eye of a massive cyclone. Dorothy had never seen a cyclone before, of course, she hadn’t even left Kansas except for one trip to visit relatives in California five years ago, but it still struck her as odd. Around the house, debris swirled around, mostly roof tiles and bits of silverware. Dorothy noticed her dress in the chaos. 

“Well, fantastic. Sooner or later this house is gonna come crashin’ down, an’ then they’re gonna find my naked body in some field.” She sighed.  
But as fifteen minutes passed, then thirty, then an hour, the house didn’t crashland. Dorothy made herself busy, sweeping the debris into a pile and salvaging what she could. She tried to toss the broken chair through the trapdoor, but found that the currents of the trapdoor kept it floating above the trapdoor rather than falling through. 

“Good gracious! That’s mighty odd, but I don’t fancy tryin’ that for myself, knowin’ my luck it’ll stop workin’ an’ I’ll fall through.” Dorothy mused aloud.  
Dorothy took stock of what she had. She had found her bra in the wreckage, but the rest of her clothes were somewhere in the maelstrom outside. She had some matches and candles, a thermos full of water, one intact paintbrush, a few forks and spoons, and of course, Toto. She moved to her bedroom to put on fresh clothes, before remembering that she had moved them all to the cellar specifically because of tornadoes. Dorothy would have cursed, but she was the type that would apologize for saying “shoot”, so she could barely muster up a “shucks”.

“Is the universe just tryin’ to get me to go to my grave nekkid?” She asked Toto, who didn’t answer because dogs can’t talk. “This is all very, what’s the word?” Toto barked.

“Oh well, at least everything’s stopped shakin’. Maybe now I can get some sleep before I get smashed to bits on impact.” Dorothy climbed into bed, her loyal canine curling up next to her.

“What a day…” Dorothy murmured, but the gentle rocking of the house was surprisingly soothing, and Dorothy found herself drifting off to sleep.


	2. Welcome to Munchkinland

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact! In the books, Glinda is the Good Witch of the South. Her and the Good Witch of the North are different characters. It makes sense to combine them for film because other than when Dorothy first arrives in Oz, the Good Witch of the North appears like one other time in Baum's original 14 books (his successor does stuff with her, but she also added stuff to the Oz lore that was suuuuuper racist so I don't want to count that). In my version, they're separate characters because I read the books first and that's what's authentic to me.
> 
> Again thank you to DrowsyAthena for being an excellent beta reader! Go read her stuff! It's better than mine!

When Dorothy awoke, she was surprised to realize that the house had stopped spinning. Sunlight was streaming through the window. Through the window, Dorothy could see rolling fields of tall grass, and a forest in the distance. Everything looked strangely blue, but Dorothy figured it was just a weird trick of the light.

"I don't believe it!" She exclaimed aloud. "That twister just set me down gently in some field someplace!"

Dorothy didn't see anyone through the window, so she climbed out of bed, her bare feet running along the wooden floor as she headed to the main room.

"Well, I don't have any clue where I am... I reckon I could be in Utah for all I know." She wondered aloud. 

Toto greeted her as she begin searching through the rest of the rubble. She found a basket and put the thermos, the paintbrush, the matches, and the candles inside of it. She debated on what to do with the bra, before deciding wearing nothing and wearing only a bra weren't too different, and she put it at the bottom of the basket.

"Now then, should I just go out of the house as I am?" She wondered aloud. "I don't know how they feel about nudity in Utah, but I don't have much of a choice, do I?"

Toto barked, as if in agreement.

"Well, that settles it. Worst case I can hide in the grass if someone passes by."

Dorothy grabbed the door handle and slowly pulled it open. She peered out and gasped at what she saw.

The blueness of the grass was not a trick of the light. All the plants around her were as blue as a Kansas summer sky. A few pale blue butterflies flitted between blue flowers. The only non-blue thing she could see was a path made of cracked yellow brick, a few yards beyond the front door.

"This doesn't look like Utah..." Dorothy mused aloud.

Toto immediately barked and ran off in pursuit of the butterflies. Dorothy stood in front of the house, looking around in wonder.

As she looked, she suddenly heard a voice behind her. "Are you a good witch, or a bad witch?"

Dorothy squeaked and whirled around, using her hands to cover herself as best she could. What she saw was a very strange sight.

Three men stood behind her. They were each shorter than her, the tallest one probably only a hair over four feet, and wore suits of a deep blue. Even their skin, had a bluish tint to it. But behind them was an even stranger sight.

A tall, plump woman with long white hair with just a hint of purple tint to it stood behind them. Atop her head was a purple cap made of some sort of fine silk, and in her hand was a shiny purple stick with a star on one end of it. Like a magic wand, Dorothy thought to herself. But the most striking thing about the old woman was that she was just as nude as Dorothy. She radiated a certain air of dignity, as if she was much older and wiser than she appeared, and her nudity somehow only added to the effect.

The woman repeated the question. "Are you a good witch, or a bad witch?"

"I... I'm not a witch, ma'am! I'm just a farm girl!" Dorothy stuttered.

"But you are dressed like a witch." Said one of the blue men.

"And you came down from the sky!" Said the second man.

"And you killed the Wicked Witch!" Said the third man.

"I didn't kill no one! What's going on?" Dorothy asked, taking a step back from them.

"Calm down, my dear. We're not accusing you of anything." Said the woman. "Why don't you three head back to the village?" She said, addressing the three men. "I'll tend to our new arrival."

The men nodded and scampered off. The nude woman held out her hand to Dorothy. "I know you must have a lot of questions."

"I do! Where am I? How come you're naked? Why do they think I'm a witch?"

The woman laughed. "I'm naked because I'm a witch! I believe the Munchkins think you are too. I'm the Good Witch of the North. And you are?"

Dorothy finally accepted the outstretched hand, uncovering her chest, but kept the hand with the basket firmly over her lower body. "I'm Dorothy. But I'm not a witch! I didn't even know witches were real until just now! An' frankly I'm still not so sure."

The Good Witch of the North smiled. "You may not be a witch, but you must still be a powerful sorceress. Not many people could have killed the mighty Wicked Witch of the East!"

"But I haven't killed anyone!" Dorothy protested.

"Ah, but you have! Look!"

The witch pointed with her wand, and Dorothy turned to see a pair of legs sticking out from under the house. On the feet were a pair of silver satin slippers. As Dorothy watched, the dead witch faded into nothing, and the slippers fell to the ground.

"The Wicked Witch of the East has been ruling over the Munchkins for over a century. But your house descended from the sky and squashed her flat! And as the witch who slayed her, that makes you the Good Witch of the East, and the new High Ruler of Munchkinland."

"I didn't mean to kill her! An' I don't want to be the ruler of anything!" Dorothy protested. Tears were forming in her eyes.

"Oh, Dorothy..." The witch stepped forward and wrapped her arms around Dorothy delicately in a warm embrace.

Dorothy hugged the nude woman tightly, sobbing. But her embrace calmed her and she soon felt her breathing returning to normal."

"I'm sorry you got mixed up in all this, you poor dear." The Good Witch said when she pulled away. 

"I just want to go home." Dorothy sniffed. "Which way is Kansas?"

"I'm afraid I do not know this "Kansas". Is it somewhere in Oz?"

Dorothy looked confused. "Australia?"

"No, dear, Oz. The land at the center of the continent of Nonestica, surrounded on all sides by an impassable deadly desert. If you are from beyond Oz... my magic is not powerful enough to get you home."

Dorothy looked dejected.

"But..." the witch mused, "The Wizard may be able to help."

"What Wizard?"

The good witch smiled. "West of here, at the end of the Road of Yellow Brick, is the Emerald City. It is ruled over by a mighty wizard that even the Wicked Witches dare not oppose. If anyone in Oz is mighty enough to send you home, it is him."

"Then I wanna go to him! Can you take me to him?" Dorothy asked.

"My people need me, I am afraid, but I can help you." The witch turned to the silver slippers. "These slippers belonged to the Wicked Witch. If you wear them, people will know that you are the one who vanquished her, and will help you. Other than the shoes, it's probably best you remain dressed as you are, even Kalidahs know better than to mess with a witch."

Dorothy nodded, slipping the soft shoes onto her feet. "Won't it get cold at night?"

"It's never too cold in fairyland, my dear." The good witch smiled. "And one last thing..." She leaned forward and planted a kiss on Dorothy's forehead. Dorothy felt a heat where her lips touched her. 

"There. Nothing can harm someone who has been kissed by the Good Witch of the North."

Dorothy nodded. "So I just follow the road until I get to the Emerald City? An' it's ok that I'm... you know?"

"More than okay, my dear." The Good Witch grinned. "Just stay on the road and you'll reach the city in a few days. You'll surely meet some folks along the way who will help you, and there's plenty of wild fruit so you won't get hungry."

Dorothy nodded, still feeling overwhelmed. "Thank you, Good Witch!"

The witch smiled and stood upright, waving her wand. Before Dorothy's eyes, she seemed to vanish into mist.

Dorothy blinked in shock. So much had happened in so short a time, and the poor girl was reeling.

"Well, I'd best find Toto an' get going..." She thought, looking along the yellow brick road as it wound through bright blue hills into the horizon. "I never expected to meet a real witch, let alone a nekkid one..."


	3. Dorothy Meets the Scarecrow

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so we venture onward along the Yellow Brick Road... who knows what adventure awaits our heroine? 
> 
> I do. I know what adventure awaits. And you probably have a pretty good idea too. But hey, it's still hopefully fun to read, right?

Dorothy and Toto set off along the Yellow Brick Road, Dorothy holding her basket in the crook of her hand. The silver slippers kept her feet from being scratched by the loose bricks, and the sun warmed her bare skin. 

Toto, for his part, was having the time of his life. He ran ahead of Dorothy, chasing after insects and barking at birds that flew overhead. Dorothy, however, was feeling a lot less secure. She was used to being nude to an extent, but in a strange place like this, out in the open, she couldn't help but feel a bit awkward. The countryside was full of fields growing a variety of crops, and there were a few Munchkins working in the fields. They all bowed respectfully when Dorothy passed, and a few offered her food for her journey, which Dorothy accepted gratefully. 

As the sun peaked in the sky, Dorothy sat in the shade of a great tree for lunch. The tree was growing a strange blue fruit, which tasted like plums to Dorothy. "I hope no one minds if I take a few of these for later," she said to no one in particular. 

The afternoon took her deeper into the countryside. The farmhouses became fewer and further between, and the fields became larger. Stalks of corn and wheat towered over her on both sides of the Yellow Brick Road. Dorothy couldn't help but marvel at how well the Munchkin crops seemed to be growing. "Is it magic, do you reckon?" She asked Toto, who simply wagged his tail in response.

About mid-afternoon, Dorothy was growing weary. She had been walking for hours, and she was beginning to get worried about where she would stay for the night.

"Perhaps I'll find a place to sit for a little while... pity there are no more trees around."

Dorothy climbed over a small wooden fence and found herself in a dense cornfield. The corn grew some eight feet in the air, well above her head.

"I reckon this is trespassin'... Miss Gulch never did like me trespassin', but maybe folk here are kinder."

Dorothy wandered among the stalks of corn for a bit, making sure to keep an eye on where the sun was in the sky so that she could navigate back to the Yellow Brick Road. Presently, she came to a small clearing in the middle of the cornfield. In the center of the clearing was a scarecrow on a pole. The scarecrow was crudely made, with a burlap sack for a head and a wide grin painted on, and was stuffed full to bursting with straw. His body was sown together from a pair of white gloves, a faded checked shirt, a pair of blue overalls, and a nice pair of black boots. The clothes were all a bit too big for Dorothy by the looks of things, but she wasn't keen on disassembling some farmer's scarecrow anyway. More straw poked through the seams where the various bits of cloth were sown together. A small pile of straw sat at the foot of the pole, seemingly leftover from the process of stuffing the scarecrow.

"How quaint!" Dorothy exclaimed aloud. "That straw pile will be a perfect place to sit and rest."

Dorothy sat with her back leaning against the pole, and pulled out one of the blue fruits from her basket, biting into it. A breeze blew through the cornfield, making the stalks of corn sway gently all around her.

Suddenly, Dorothy heard a hoarse voice from somewhere above her. "Excuse me, are you a crow?"

Dorothy jumped in fright. "Who said that?"

"I did," The voice replied.

Dorothy looked up at the scarecrow. It seemed to have moved slightly, and was now looking at her.

"Are you... alive?"

"I don't rightly know," said the scarecrow. There was no denying it- somehow, the painted mouth was moving when he spoke. "It's all very new to me, this whole being alive business. All I know is that I am a scarecrow, and I scared you, so you must be a crow."

Dorothy couldn't help but laugh at this. "I'm not a crow! I'm Dorothy."

"My apologies, Dorothy." The scarecrow sighed. "I should have known better. But as you can probably see..." The scarecrow reached an arm up and patted his misshapen head. "No brain. Just straw."

"I'm sorry to hear that." Dorothy said. After her initial fright, Dorothy was feeling a lot better about this strange creature. It's hard to be intimidated by a scarecrow, especially one with such a jolly expression painted on. After all, she figured, the witch had said this was fairyland. A talking scarecrow wasn't unreasonable in fairyland.

"I don't suppose you could help me off this pole?" Scarecrow asked, his painted face looking as apologetic as a painted smile can. "I won't do much good up here if I don't even know what a crow is."

"Sure thing." Dorothy gripped the pole, lowering it to the ground and helping the Scarecrow slide off of it. The Scarecrow gingerly placed its straw-packed legs on the ground and immediately lost his balance, falling to the ground, exclaiming something that sounded to Dorothy like "klumping kaloogas!"

"Being flesh must serve some function when it comes to walking." The scarecrow suggested as he tried and failed to get to his feet. "You seem to have no trouble balancing, and you're made of even more meat than the Munchkins that made me."

"What does that mean?" Dorothy asked, unsure how to take that.

"Well, the folks who made me- whoops!" The scarecrow fell to the ground again. "They were made of some meat, but they also had cloth bodies like me. Your body is all meat, as near as I can tell."

Dorothy laughed. "I think you just mean their clothes."

"Ah. That makes a bit more sense. Pardon me." The Scarecrow sighed ruefully. "I don't have a brain, and I'm liable to confuse things easily."

"You seem rather worried about brains," Dorothy observed shrewdly. 

"All the brightest academics and scholars have brains, Dorothy. I- I have a bunch of straw. If I had a brain, maybe I could learn, and really make something of myself! But alas, I doubt anyone would be able to give me a brain."

"Perhaps the Wizard in the Em'rald City can help! I'm goin' to him to ask for help getting back home, perhaps he can give you a brain as well!"

"Transportation and brain-making are very different skill sets. Are you sure this Wizard would be able to help?" The Scarecrow asked, more wisely than his lack of a brain would suggest. 

"It's worth a try, isn't it? Besides, you'd make good company." Dorothy was growing quite fond of the straw man. "Here, take my hand and I'll help you walk!"

The Scarecrow gratefully accepted the offered hand, and with Dorothy's help, pulled himself to his feet. He leaned against Dorothy for balance, loose bits of straw scratching against her skin.

Dorothy led the Scarecrow through the field back to the Yellow Brick Road. The Scarecrow stumbled a few times, but seemed to be getting the hang of walking. By the time they reached the road, he was able to walk on his own, although he wasn't exactly graceful by any metric.

"Alright, Dorothy, let us go! Let us head for the Emerald City." 

Dorothy smiled as she turned east, her back to the setting sun, and resumed her journey, her new companion beside her.

"What a strange pair we are!" She mused aloud. "A body without any clothes, and a set of clothes without a body!"


	4. The Mysterious Cabin

The sun was getting low in the sky as Dorothy and the Scarecrow headed west along the Yellow Brick Road. Dorothy was beginning to get worried. They were leaving the farmland areas and approaching a great forest, and Dorothy was worried about where they would spend the night.

When she brought this worry up to the Scarecrow, he simply shrugged as best he could. "I don't sleep, and I don't know much about sleep. Perhaps we'll find an empty house to use?"

"What are the odds of that?" Dorothy asked. "No one would abandon a perfectly good house."

"Maybe the owner is going to the Emerald City too?" The Scarecrow suggested.

"Maybe..." Dorothy said, not nearly as optimistic as her brainless companion.

It was getting quite dark when they approached the forest at last. Dorothy was nervous, until she remembered the candles in her basket. 

"Scarecrow, can you hold my basket for me while I light a candle?" She asked.

"A candle? Please don't do that, Dorothy. I'm terribly afraid of fire. I'm liable to burn easily. Besides, I can see just as well in the dark."

"Well, I need to see at night." Dorothy argued. "Least until we find a place to camp."

"What about that little cabin right there?" The Scarecrow asked, pointing into the trees.

"Where?" Dorothy peered into the woods. She could faintly make out an odd shape among the trees.

"There, see?"

Indeed, a little way past the treeline was a small cabin. It wasn't much bigger than Dorothy's bedroom, and unlike most of the rest of the buildings they had passed, which were painted in the pale blue of the Munchkins, this house was simply unpainted wood. A small stone well stood in front of the house, and the door was hanging open, as if the owner had just stepped out.

"What is this place?" Dorothy asked, a little unnerved in spite of herself.

"Let's go in and take a look." The Scarecrow suggested.

Dorothy peeked her head into the cottage. The inside was very cozy, and seemed bigger on the inside than its outer dimensions would allow. The door opened into a small dining room, with a table and two chairs. An oil lamp sat on the table, but it, along with the table, chairs, and everything else, was covered with a thick layer of dust. Beside her, Toto sneezed.

There were a couple of side rooms as well, which Dorothy investigated. It was dim, but not as dark as she had expected. The first room, to the right, contained a small bookshelf (mostly romance novels based on the titles), but barely enough room to sit. The second room, located behind the main room, seemed to be a kitchen, but there were no plates to be seen, and the cupboards were bare save for a couple of empty jars and a small oil can. The third room, to the left of the main room, was very small, and entirely taken up by-

"A bed!" Dorothy exclaimed. "An' by the looks of things, no one's used it in ages! This is perfect."

"I told you we'd find an empty house!" Said the Scarecrow proudly, as if he'd willed the house into existence by talking about it.

Dorothy spent the next several minutes trying to clear the house of dust as best as she could. It wasn't easy, since she had no dust rag or fabric of any kind, and the house didn't seem to contain so much as a broom.

"This house is rather odd." Dorothy said to the Scarecrow, when she had cleared as much of the dust away as she could. The two were now sitting at the table in the dim main room. Dorothy was snacking on the last of the strange blue fruits. She had offered some to the Scarecrow, who had declined, explaining: "My mouth is painted. I can't eat." Dorothy felt a bit silly for not realizing that before.

"How do you mean?" The Scarecrow asked. 

Dorothy gestured around her. "No food in the cupboards, tiny rooms, an' not even any clothes."

"Maybe the person who used to live here was like you." The Scarecrow suggested.

"Another nudist?" Dorothy was momentarily intrigued by the concept. But then, she remembered what little she knew about Oz. "In Oz... naked means witches, right? What if a witch lived here?"

"Then we'd best hope it's a good witch." The Scarecrow said. "There's two chairs- maybe two witches?"

Dorothy was suddenly much more nervous about this house.

"I need a distraction." She decided. "Tell me, how does a Scarecrow come alive?"

"I don't really know." The Scarecrow mused. "I don't remember any parents, just the farmer who made me, and he really just painted a face on a sack, stuffed me with straw, and stuck me on a pole. I don't really remember much before being up on that pole. Something about a kite, maybe?"

"Int'resting." Dorothy mused. "Are all Oz scarecrows alive?"

"I've never met any other Scarecrows, so I can't say." The Scarecrow replied. "If they are, I wonder what their lives are like. What if their farmers forgot to paint ears? Would they be able to hear?"

Dorothy started to answer, but it turned into a massive yawn instead. "Perhaps I oughtta sleep." She muttered. "Where's Toto?"

Toto, as it turned out, was behind the cabin, barking into the woods loudly as if he was trying to scare someone off. Dorothy scooped up the little dog in her arms.

"Don't worry, Toto, it's prolly just a mouse." She tried to comfort Toto, but he continued looking into the trees and growling until Dorothy carried him inside.

"I don't need to sleep, so I'll stay up and read some of the books in that side room." The Scarecrow told her when she came back inside. "If the witches come back, I'll let you know."

Dorothy nodded, but she was feeling very tired by this point. She hadn't really had time to process the day's events. A tornado, witches, a talking scarecrow, and all of it while she didn't have so much as a stitch on! It was a miracle she'd managed to stay calm. As she lay in the surprisingly hard bed in the side room, she wondered if she would wake up in the morning and discover that this had all been a dream and she was back in Kansas.

"I wonder what my Aunt and Uncle must think..." was the last thought she had before the battle between the strangely uncomfortable bed and her tiredness was finally won and she drifted off into a peaceful, dreamless sleep.


End file.
